Dentistry: The Limitations of Transplants

Ecuadorian Indians faced up to the problem in the days before Columbus;
so did U.S. dentists around the time of the Revolution: if someone had
a hole in his jawbone where a tooth had just been extracted, why not
fill it with any fresh, healthy-looking tooth that happened to be available?
The answer seemed especially logical since many of these transplants
apparently worked.

The price paid to donors for front teeth went up to 4 guineas a tooth in
New York in 1772. The trouble was that neither the Indians nor the
colonial dentists knew anything...